Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

311–320 of 865 posts

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#311

Post by tommychillfiger »

namrog84 wrote: post #245

Quit my job earlier this year to start an indie game studio and a little bit of contributions to misc open-source projects. A fair balance of relax time but also enjoying the time off. There is so much I want to do and get excited for, but I still suffer a lot of procrastination related problems or else I feel like I could have done a tremendous amount more. I feel like there is lifetimes of things I get excited abou…

Feel this hard. I feel like I did well during unemployment while the Covid lockdown played out. I was an audio engineer before that, and during lockdown I ran 30 miles a week, made a lot of music, learned some Python, managed to pivot into tech (analytics). Still, it never feels like I'm really doing anywhere near as much as I could - that was all pretty much 3-5 hours a day with the rest being more or less pure leisure and rest.

Part of me is tempted to buy into the idea that the human animal just isn't naturally inclined to do more than a handful of hours of difficult or "productive" work in an average day. I honestly have no idea whether I'm normal or not, but I agree the pressure I put on myself probably isn't ultimately helpful most of the time. It's hard not to feel like others are getting way more done, and even harder to tell how much of what is presented is authentic.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#312

Post by probablynish »

nwiswell wrote: post #284

Powerlifting. Solitary and meditative if you want it to be; social and uplifting if you don't. It's healthy in a variety of ways (including bone density; physical activity; higher BMR and glucose metabolism; improved cardiovascular function). Also being strong is useful surprisingly often. Unlike many things in life, your progress is almost entirely dependent on your consistency and the effort invested, with the exce…

> Unlike many things in life, your progress is almost entirely dependent on your consistency and the effort invested

This really resonates with me. Not powerlifting myself, but I have a strength training routine at the gym with the goal of improving my right knee pain. I have to take things very slow (increase by 1 rep each session, up the weight every ~2 weeks by the smallest possible increment) but looking at my graph this year is very satisfying. This little corner of my life feels a lot more under my control than anything else right now

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#313

Post by tommychillfiger »

dcw303 wrote: post #305

Math as prep for 3d game programming. I've been out of school a long time, and when I was there I didn't even get to the pre-calculus level. This year I've churned through all the introductory level texts from Art Of Problem Solving. Yes, they're written for high schoolers and you need to have some humility to admit you might be missing or have forgotten some fundamentals, but the lesson strucutre really appeals to m…

This is awesome to hear. I took trigonometry and business calculus 1 & 2 in college, but that's a far cry from what I'd need to do anything interesting with ML which I'm interested in trying.

I've bought a few textbooks for statistics, math, and data engineering - I'm in the middle of getting my life together in terms of habits and time management so hopefully I'll be right there with you doing what is essentially remedial math for someone in their 30s, lol. I know it will be exciting once I make space for it and get into a rhythm. Cheers!

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#314

Post by philip1209 »

OJFord wrote: post #303
philip1209 wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Trees are renewable. The mass of a tree comes from the carbon it extracts from the air. [1] It's not a zero-sum, though. Why does my cilantro need to come in a plastic bag? At the farmer's market, it doesn't come packaged at all. [1] And, fire is basically reversing the process - releasing the sunlight that created the plant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1pIYI5JQLE

> Why does my cilantro need to come in a plastic bag? Everything here is hugely regional, but two answers spring to mind: 1) coriander is frequently sold in unpackaged bunches, typically larger than the packaged ones; 2) it's packaged in plastic because then it can be filled with some inert gas that prolongs spoiling, it's not completely obtuse. (In the UK for example Waitrose sells it growing reared in Sussex, or pa…

The big takeaway from the Silo book matched the motto of restaurant Noma - "Time and place" - to eat locally and seasonally. So much of the carbon footprint of food comes from not eating locally or seasonally. For example, getting an avocado toast in November here in NYC requires putting an avocado on a 747 and flying it around the world. And, yes - in places like the UK or Denmark or New York, that can mean that fresh foods in Winter are scarce - but that's where fermentation can be a fascinating area of exploration (and, a related passion of mine right now).

I don't share this to create a sense of guilt or scarcity. We have oil now and can get coriander and avocados in the Winter. That means it can be from a position of fun (and privilege) that we can explore alternative ways to eat. But, our ancestors still ate without 747s. Constraints drive creativity - and exploring these areas of low-carbon eating now can drive innovation that helps us cope with with a more low-oil world.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#316

Post by bodhi_mind »

huhtenberg wrote: post #137

Mead. On my 5th batch and it's an awesome hobby. Very easy and inexpensive to get started, the process is slow-paced, but not glacial, not hard to follow, but with a depth to it if it's your thing ... and then you get to drink the result!

What styles are you making? I made a dandelion flower dry mead and it tastes decent after 6 months but feels flabby. I’m experimenting with adding some acid to balance it out.

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#318

Post by ggregoire »

kzhen wrote: post #159
scruple wrote: post #96

Board game design, but specifically solo and 2-player co-op games that have a small footprint, small board states, and are easy to play. I've been looking for offline hobbies and recently got into solo board gaming, on top of playing games with my wife a couple of times a month. I work in gamesdev and I want to retain a creative outlet in the direction of gaming, because I just really enjoy it, but I also want to sto…

any suggestions for solo board games? not a genre that I'm familiar with

Here is a good start: https://boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/306154/2022-peoples-choic...

The subreddit is pretty active too: https://old.reddit.com/r/soloboardgaming

Re: Ask HN: What are you passionate about at the moment?

#320

Post by ggregoire »

globalnode wrote: post #270
scruple wrote: post #96

Board game design, but specifically solo and 2-player co-op games that have a small footprint, small board states, and are easy to play. I've been looking for offline hobbies and recently got into solo board gaming, on top of playing games with my wife a couple of times a month. I work in gamesdev and I want to retain a creative outlet in the direction of gaming, because I just really enjoy it, but I also want to sto…

never heard of solo board games before, is it possible?

Most modern board games have a solo mode and many games are solo only. I gave two links to the sibling comment if you want to look at some games.
Post reply on HN